Montanans line up to register to vote at the Lewis and Clark County Elections Office on November 5, 2024. (Photo by Blair Miller/Daily Montanan)
The U.S. Senate rejected the SAVE America Act on Thursday, dealing a blow to President Donald Trump’s efforts to impose voting restrictions ahead of November’s midterm elections.
The senators voted 48-50 opposed advancing an amendment that would have incorporated Trump’s top legislative priority into law Immigration-related spending bill. The vote was the clearest sign yet that, despite pressure from the president, a handful of Republican senators continue to resist moving forward with the bill, which critics say would trigger immense chaos ahead of the fall election.
The SAVE America Act would require voters to provide documents proving their citizenship, such as a birth certificate or passport, when registering to vote. It would also require voters to show photo ID when voting and limit where voters can register, effectively eliminating voter registration campaigns.
Democrats and voting rights groups have attacked the bill, saying this is the case Disenfranchise voters and upend the midterm elections because the recent rules would take effect immediately. Trump and the bill’s GOP backers say it is necessary to combat non-citizen voting, an extremely uncommon phenomenon.
Since taking office last year, Trump has made a number of attempts to influence the conduct of elections. An executive order that would restrict mail-in voting remains in effect for now as opponents challenge it in federal court and the Justice Department keep looking Compelling states to release sensitive voter data has so far been unsuccessful.
The Senate amendment proposed by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina also included restrictions on transgender athletes’ sports participation. After the vote, Graham took to social media to call the SAVE America Act “one of the most consequential” pieces of legislation Trump and his team have developed.
“All Democrats voted no, and they will pay a price at some point,” Graham said wrote.
Republicans also voted no
But the proposal also failed with a compact group of Republicans. Senators Susan Collins of Maine, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Thom Tillis of North Carolina joined Democrats in voting no.
Collins is seeking re-election in one of the most competitive Senate races in the country. McConnell and Tillis have both decided against seeking re-election, while Murkowski said the bill would create barriers for voters in their immense, rural state.
To advance the amendment would have required 60 votes — the same hurdle to overcome a filibuster.
The vote came after the Senate debated the SAVE America Act for weeks earlier this year before moving on to other issues without a vote. Trump called on Republicans to abandon the filibuster to pass the bill. without success.
“We will suppress this blatant attempt at voter suppression,” said Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia. wrote on social media after the vote.
The Senate also rejected, by a vote of 50-49, a separate amendment from Sen. Mike Lee, a Republican from Utah, that included a different version of the SAVE America Act. Lee said the amendment was the House-passed version of the bill, which did not include provisions regarding transgender athletes.
Collins voted for the amendment after previously rejecting Graham’s amendment.
California
Both amendments failed hours after Trump claimed without evidence that Democrats were “stealing the vote” in California. The state held primary elections earlier this week, but vote counting is often ponderous in the state, meaning vote totals reported on election night do not always reflect the final outcome of a race.
Trump linked He wrote on social media that “I hope Republicans are watching” so they can pass the bill.
“They found a shocking number of mail-in ballots last night,” Trump said Thursday at an unrelated event in the Oval Office. “So we don’t want that.”
With the Senate unwilling to move forward with the SAVE America Act, some Republican lawmakers have begun offering alternative election-related bills.
Republican Reps. Julie Fedorchak of North Dakota and Laurel Lee of Florida introduced the SAVE America Through REAL ID Act on Thursday, which would create a grant program to aid states provide REAL ID-compliant driver’s licenses and identification cards for free to low-income residents.
On Tuesday, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, and Graham introduced the Election Security Partnership Act, which would encourage states to submit their voter rolls a computer program Operated by the Department of Homeland Security and can identify possible non-citizens.
States can already upload voter data into the program called Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, but the legislation includes $20 million in grants for states to offset any costs associated with using SAVE.
